


One of Those Hideous Fics Where the Mother Moves to Mexico

by thelma_throwaway



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Humor, Joanna Moves to Space, Kid Fic, Parenthood, Some angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:16:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23318227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelma_throwaway/pseuds/thelma_throwaway
Summary: Joanna McCoy joins her father on the Enterprise with.... mixed results.(Incomplete- written 2009)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 21





	1. I Hate Space

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2009 and presented with minimal editing.
> 
> Original authors note:
> 
> This fic is based heavily on the wonderful Sonya Sones book One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies. If you haven't read it, even if you're not a 16 year old girl (I first read it at that age), even if you're not from Boston (even though I am), even if your parents aren't divorced, you should read it. I wasn't up for writing it free verse poetry style, which Sones does beautifully. Many of the plot points reminded me of something Joanna might go through and there is a serious absence of Joanna McCoy up in this fandom.

If anyone asks, I’ll say that my mother died. Freak hypospray accident, shuttle crash, spontaneous combustion.

Anything. Anything at all is better than the truth.

Okay, so maybe it’s a little harsh or sick or something to say that she died, but if she wasn’t frolicking with her new husband in Cabo (and really, what grown ass woman goes to _Cabo_ ), I would strangle her. And then she’d be dead anyway. And then I could _really_ tell everyone that she was dead. From my jail cell, of course.

The worst part isn’t even that she’s making me go live with my dad (whom I shall refer to as Leonard, until he proves himself a worthy father), its that she’s making me fly. Fly in a little, shitty, cramped shuttle to a smelly tin can space station and then beam aboard Leonard’s mother ship.

I would have rather floated around space and waited for them to pick me up.

Flying scares me. Scares me more than rattlesnakes or starving to death (bring that one to the shrinks, whydon’tya) or even that my dad will reject me because he loves his new spaceship family more.

Whoa.

Where’d that come from?

Anyway.

Flying scares me because its so unnatural. And space is so big and so many things could go wrong. My dad- Leonard, once told me that there were as many ways to die in space as there were planets to die on. This was, of course, shortly before I left for boarding school on Cerberus. Good timing there, Lenny.

So here I am. Sitting in the intergalactic terminal. All my bags safely tucked in the hold of a flying space coffin. Chewing my nails while my mother drinks strawberry daiquiris. Going to live with my father, who hasn’t been much of a father at all.

\---

"Welcome to Alpha-"

"Bathroom, Now."

The greeter lady is perky and pretty, and her eyes go all the way back to her ears. And I’ve had to pee since we broke through the atmosphere. She points me towards the exact opposite end of the terminal (who designed the place?) and informs me that my name will be called when its my turn at the transporter.

"Beautiful," I snap and waddle towards the big metal slap door that says ‘FEMALE’ in four different languages and one set of squiggles.

The bathroom is sleek and space-agey and I hate it. You’d have to have graduated with honors from Starfleet with honors just to turn on the sink. I take the last Earth water pee I’ll take in a long time. No lie, I stand in front of the sink for like 5 minutes trying to figure out how to make water come out, until a kindly alien lady that barely comes up to my elbow walks by and rasps, "It’s a gel, sweetheart. Clap your hands under the faucet."

I do it and a dollop of blue gel plops out.

I hate space.

After, like, _hours_ of waiting (okay, an hour and a half) "McCoy, Joanna, please go to Transporter Terminal 4, your destination is in range," comes over the loudspeaker in a soothing, alien voice. I haul my bag over to Terminal 4, which is somehow, again, at the exact opposite end of where I am.

My turn, my ass. I have to wait another hour (okay, twenty minutes) in line behind a guy in smelly wool robes and in front of a lizard lookin’ woman holding two chickens in each hand. Finally, finally, finally its my turn and I step up on the little pad, holding my bag tight and cursing my bikini wearing, intern dating, daughter exiling mother and my workaholic, space dwelling, daughter avoiding father for meeting each other and marrying and reproducing and divorcing and moving to exact opposite ends of the universe so that _I_ am the one who has to get broken up into little pieces and shot through space like a pixie stick sneeze.

"Please keep all hands, feet, or tentacles inside the pad-"

"This isn’t my first time," I growl. It is. I hate directions.

"Fine." The transporter operator and presses a bunch of buttons. "Energizing."

My hands and my arms and my entire _body_ turns into little sparkles and there’s this brain melting _weeeooohweeeooohweeeoooh_. Goodbye mom, and mom’s nubile intern husband. Goodbye Lelaa, best friend, and Ed, ex-boyfriend extraordinaire. Goodbye raging rivers and fresh air and fried chicken and people my age. Goodbye Mississippi. Goodbye Earth.

I hate space.

Beam me up.


	2. In Space No One Can Hear You Scream (But That Won't Stop Me From Trying)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For my first dinner as a practical hostage on an orbiting death trap, I will not have the self-pitying luxury of being alone, or at the very least, alone with Leonard.

On my 12th birthday, the last time I saw Leonard in the flesh, my father warned me about many things. One was Denevan neural parasites. One was boys who didn’t want to meet your mother. One was transporter malfunctions.

He had a catalogue, possibly memorized, possibly exaggerated, of horror stories. Arms showing up on Transporter Pad 4, the rest on Transporter Pad 5. Ion storms that shot you back to 20th century Earth or to alternate dimensions where everyone had a beard. Miscalculations that made you materialize in the Warp core instead of the transporter room.

Then he gave me a hug, told me I was a good kid and that he was sad that he couldn’t claim he had a thing to do with how well I turned out.

Total Lifetime moment.

I wonder if I can feel my particles go through space. I wonder how I’ll know if everything is back where it should be. I wonder if all my innards will rearrange themselves. I wonder if this will make me look skinnier.

Before the scowl is even off my face from bitching at the operator, I’m rematerializing. It tingles.

Leonard is standing at parade rest next to a blonde guy with captain’s braids on his shoulders. He smiles a dad smile, identical to mine, if you’re to believe the she-demon that birthed me. The she-demon who is sunning herself on white sand beaches while I suck recycled air.

"Holy shit, Bones," Blondie/Captain says. "I thought your daughter was like… ten."

"She was, Jim. She grew up."

I step off the transporter pad and the operator takes off this goofy orange eye shield and winks at me. Leonard goes in for a hug and I try to make it as churchy as possible, but there must be a damn good gym onboard because he’s almost crushing me.

"I missed you, Jojo," he whispers. More precious moments.

"Yeah," I breathe (choke, gasp, _whatever_ ).

"How was the trip." He knows I hate flying because he hates flying and besides his jaw, his temper and his last name, that’s all I’ve inherited from him.

"Long and airborne." He lets go and takes my bag from me, not even faltering a little although it’s filled with at least half of my books from home.

"You got taller." It’s true. I shot up like a dandelion in a manure pile since the last time I saw Leonard.

"It happens." I’m doing a very good job of being aloof, but the little kid part of me wants keep my arms around his neck and keep squeezing and squeezing until he says something silly and awkward like ‘I know I didn't write much, but that’s no reason to strangle me Jo’ like he did when was I was little.

"This is Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise." Leonard tosses his head towards the blonde guy who wrinkles his nose.

"Hey! That’s my line. Call me Jim." Jim reaches out like he’s going to shake my hand but instead pulls me into a hug. "I’ve heard a lot about you Joanna. Your old man is the proudest papa I’ve ever met.

"Mrrrmpph." My face is smooshed against his chest. He must work out, too. First thing tomorrow, I’m finding this space gym.

"Dammit, Jim, let go. She’s a teenager, not a tube of toothpaste."

\- - -

Everyone stops and salutes as we power walk down the corridor. I know its for the Captain- Jim - but it still feels pretty cool. And I’m almost certain the double takes are all for me. I’m tall, I’m scowly, I’m a new face after almost two years puttering around space with the same 430 people. I guess I got a lot more from my d- from Leonard then I thought. We have the same floppy, sleek hair and tiny mouth and the same ‘Time? I have no _time_ for your bullshit’ gait.

"So if you’re not ten, how old are you, Joanna?" The Captain is totally strutting, but not in a douchey way. In a comfortable, I-own-this-shit way. "And are you a Jo or a Joey. Or an Anna. Or an Annie-"

"I’m a Jo and I’m seventeen."

"Not for another three months you’re not," Leonard says with a slight scowl. Its not angry, more confused. Like have I missed another three months from my daughter’s life and not noticed.

"I round."

Jim laughs and stops in front of a slide door, the kind they only have in government buildings and T.V. shows. " ‘I round’! She’s funnier than you, Bones."

We all file in and there’s a long glass table set for five with high-tech, uncomfortable looking chairs. Well, fuck my life.

For my first dinner as a practical hostage on an orbiting death trap, I will not have the self-pitying luxury of being alone, or at the very least, alone with Leonard.

I groan.

Cap’n Jim must mistake it for a hunger pain because he smirks (I guess his smirks are like Leonard’s scowls; many and varied in translation) and says, "In the maritime age, captains would invite all their officers and guests to dinner. I figured we’d try it out."

"Cool."

Jim floats away to talk to a wrinkled little alien in a white dress uniform but Leonard stands firmly next to me. The room is spacious and there’s a half wall between us and a big, rumpled bed, so I assume that this is Jimbo’s quarters.

"Bastard didn’t even bother to clean," Leonard mutters. "How’s your mom?"

_Dead. She never even saw the stampeding bison._

"Remarried. To an alternative medicine intern."

"Dear God." We both hate alternative medicine. Put it on the center section of the venn diagram of Joanna and Leonard McCoy. In the Leonard section: Does want to be here. In the Joanna section: Doesn’t. "Is he… is he nice?"

Leonard McCoy Awkward Question (TM). He’s asking if Moonbeam (that’s not his real name, but I don’t remember it, so he’s always been Moonbeam to me) has be untoward to me.

"I was having headaches and he told me with great authority that it was just my chakra. Then he lit a bunch of pink candles that smelled like cat piss and rubbed a crystal on my chin."

"That’s child abuse." As opposed to simple negligence?

"You’re preachin’ to the choir."

The door whooshes open and instrides a beautiful woman and a very handsome Vulcan.

"Uhura, Spock, this is my daughter Joanna."

The Vulcan looks almost surprised, quirking an eyebrow.

"A pleasure." He bows slightly at the waist, his hands clasped behind his back.

"Spock? Oh! This is the gr-" Leonard shoots me a look. "-eatest science officer in the fleet, Leonard told me."

"Leonard?" The parental unit in question purses his lips at me.

"I think its best we keep it professional." I love you, sarcasm. You have saved me so. He raises an eyebrow at me and smiles.

"It’s nice to finally meet you," Uhura takes my hand in her long, smooth one and squeezes. Does everyone here lift or something? "You look just like your father."

"Thanks, I think."

"Illogical, Nyota," Spock says. "Doctor McCoy provided only half the genetic material for his daughter."

"She pats his arm. "You still have so much to learn."

"Indeed."

Cap’n Jim floats back and tosses an arm around my shoulder. We’re going to need to chat about personal space. Actually, my preferred personal space is _all_ of space. As in, I’m still on Earth and Jimmy and Leonard are here.

"Jo is going to live here now," he says proudly, as if he carried me on his back all the way from the Biloxi space port.

"Here? As in on the _Enterprise_?" Uhura’s eyebrows shoot up. "Isn’t that against regulation?"

"Star Fleet Regulation 48569b." El Capitain’s eyes light up and everyone shakes their head like its some big inside joke that I guess I’m not in on. Dicks. " ‘Any minor who can demonstrate no other safe and fostering living arrangement and whose parent or caregiver is serving on an Federation vessel can be granted special quartering on the same vessel until they reach the age majority’. And what’s safer and more fostering than a girl living with her dad?"

Living on the Moon. With no spacesuit.

"Don’t you have school Joanna?" Uhura knits her eyebrows.

"I’m going to ho- self-school myself." I _almost_ just said home. This isn’t home. This is a travesty. "I have a bunch of little lesson disks with this obnoxious hologram teacher, so I’ll blow through those and then I’ll just read whatever I want."

"She’s gonna be another member of the family," Jim grins and gives me a shake. I want to say that I already have a family. I want to run down the corridor back to the transport room and yell _Beam me down! Beam me down! There’s been a terrible mistake!_ I want to take a shuttle back to Earth and live in Lelaa’s basement until my mom comes to her senses and comes home. I want to press the rewind button and keep holding it down until everything is normal again.

But it’s impossible. Because we’ve already warped a million miles away from the space station and the ticket was one way and Lelaa went back to Orion for the summer and Mom sold the house, the beautiful old house on the river. So I’m stuck here. With Leonard and Cap’n Jim and Vulcan McEyebrows and Freakishly Strong Uhura and God only knows how many other space cadets.

In space, no one can hear you scream.

But that won’t stop me from trying.


	3. The Reallifemare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A dream--- where everything is shitty and I’m alone on a spaceship staffed four hundred Star Fleet educated idiots.

Another memory from the McCoy Family Vault.

When I was eight, when the divorce wounds were still so fresh and oozing with anger that my parents couldn’t even look at each other when they handed me off like a suitcase full of premium Columbian, Leonard and I caught fireflies in Mason jars until our legs gave out and we laid down in the tall grass on the riverbank. I asked him to show me the constellations, like the ones that I connected with red crayon in my Lil’ Astrologer coloring book.

"Screw the constellations, Sweetheart," he’d said. "You see whatever you want to see in the stars and don’t let anyone tell you you’re wrong."

Then we named the patterns one by one. Cat Butt, Daisy Chain, Big Ass Spider Coming to Eat Little Girls Who Don’t Go to Bed On Time.

In my cabin all I can see is stars.

And stars.

And stars.

And stars and stars and stars.

One wall is just a giant picture window and you can see them every which way and they go on _forever_.

\---

I almost start to cry when I wake up the next morning. Because there’s no sun outside my window, no sparkling, muddy river, no singing birds, no scraggly garden.

Just stars.

And I think I must have woken in the middle of the night because there are no stars at 9:30 in the morning. I think I must have had just a terrible, awful dream. A dream where I was abandoned by the woman who gave birth to me and forsaken by a boyfriend who didn’t think our relationship could stand the light years between us and sent to live with my crotchety, dead-beat dad on a space ship where everyone is freakishly good looking and in shape. A dream where I had a dinner of fried replicated catfish sitting across from a pointy eared, green blooded, honest-to-goodness, not-smiling-even-once Vulcan. A dream where everything is shitty and I’m alone on a spaceship staffed four hundred Star Fleet educated idiots.

A nightmare, really.

So I fumble for the little antique lamp by my bed, _the_ lamp, the _perfect_ lamp that I combed through yard sales and flea markets for _months_ looking for. The one that is just the perfect size for my nightstand and gives off the perfect amount of light and has a pull chord that is the perfect length so that I just barely have to move my hand to turn it on.

But it’s not there.

"Where are the goddamn lights-!"

And the lights fade on.

And I look around and remember that wasn’t a nightmare. It was a reallifemare. It’s a foreverandevermare.

That’s when I _almost_ start to cry. But I don’t. Because Joanna Leonida McCoy is not a crier. She is a swearer.

"Shitbitchassballsfuckmylifeuptheass!"

My room is big. Bigger than the one at home. There’s a couch and about a hundred bookshelves and a little desk with a rolly chair.

And I have my own bathroom, which is pretty bitchin’.

Last night I put everything in its place because I knew if I wasn’t bone dead tired, I’d never fall asleep. Because its too weird to fall asleep in a room that doesn’t smell like old roses and mildew. Because its too weird to fall asleep on a bed that doesn’t have a wrought iron headboard with twinkle lights wound around it. Because its too weird to have a window that won’t open and a door that won’t lead to the narrow hallway with the stairs and standing at the bottom is mom, who I _miss_. Who I miss like she was actually dead.

And this makes me think what happens if mom dies, if she actually _dies_ , while I’m living in this rustbucket and no one remembers to call me, her only child, to tell me that she’s gone. And then I get home, not a day after I turn eighteen, because that’s when I’ll leave here. I won’t even wait for the candles on the cake to stop smoking and I’ll be on a shuttle back to Earth. To Cabo, to see Mom and Moonbeam, if he’s still around. And I’m there, and she’s _not_. And instead of Mom, it’s a stranger in a black suit that says Oh, I’m so sorry. Didn’t anyone tell you? You _were_ on the list! She’s dead, Joanna.

And now I’m _really_ going to cry. But I don’t. Because Joanna. McCoy. Does. Not. Cry.

But it’s a good thing that I got everything in order last night because when I stumble to the bathroom, my eyes are so misty that I trip over my suitcase.

I can’t figure out how to work the shower.

This is the stupidest space shower _ever_.

I wave my hand under the shower head, clap my hands, sing, dance, press everything button-like in sight. Nothing happens.

The toilet, thank God, functions like a normal Earth toilet because I don’t think I could hold my pee for the next two years. The sink is easy too, with knobs and everything, so I take a poor man’s bath (a splash under the arms, a splash on the face, wet fingers through the hair) and shuffle off to breakfast with the film of galactic travel grime still all over me.

\---

I don’t know much about this boat, but I know how to find the cafeteria, thanks to my super Girl Detective skills. Just follow the tired looking Starfleet officers grumbling about how hungry they are. And voila. A place with food. Without having to talk to _anyone_. Leonard explained last night about feeding myself and how its so very very easy. I could get anything I wanted, I just had to tell it to the replicator.

"Cake, chocolate."

That’s good and childish.

The machine goes _whoopwhoopwhoooop_ and a thick slice of chocolate cake appears on a glass plate. I pinch a piece off and stick it in my mouth.

Not bad.

But not mom’s.

Everyone is staring at me when I thread my way through the tables. Maybe because I’m a sixteen year-old-girl. Maybe because I have a slice of cake on a tray and nothing else. Maybe because I’m the only one in bunny slippers.

It’s the first day of middle school all over again. All dressed up and no one to sit with. I choose a two person table by a window. If I wanted to be a bitch, I would have chosen one of the long six seaters, just to piss people off. But I don’t want to piss people off. I don’t even care what they think. Hell, I came down here in _bunny slippers_.

"Hey! Mini McCoy!"

Jimbob is waving to me from across the room and before I can even choke out an excuse, _I have contagious bitch syndrome, I hate when people watch me eat, My breath is terrible_ , the skipper is putting his tray across from mine. It’s piled up with scrambled eggs and bacon and hash browns and it smells damn good.

Better than _cake_.

"Sleep okay?" He digs in, talking around mouthfuls of egg like a little kid.

"Yeah. Like a baby." Like a baby kidnapped by imps from space. Like a baby kidnapped by imps from space who wants to be left alone.

"I wanted to get you the visiting ambassadors’ suite, but Bones—your dad – said that it would be too much. Plus, he wanted you next door."

Christ. I didn’t know Leonard was next door.

"Sucks that you have to be so close to sickbay, though. It always smell like antiseptic down there."

"Oh." I pick at my cake with a fingernail. I could eat a horse but I forgot utensils.

"Nutritious." Jim points at my breakfast with his fork.

"I was going for petulant."

"Petulance is the breakfast of champions." The eggs are gone and he starts in on a cup of coffee.

"My mom was in Star Fleet too, ya’know."

"Awesome. We should make friendship bracelets." Shitty Spaceman Attempts at Friendship: 0. Joanna: 1.

"Or we could braid each other’s hair." Dammit, dude doesn’t miss a beat.

"And we can swap nail polishes."

"Gee whiz, Joanna. You’re just the swellest friend a gal can have." All right, James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise, you win this one.

"Ha."

"You don’t like it here." He drains his cup.

"I’m working on a temper tantrum."

"Give it some time."

"So my resentment can metastasize into a throbbing explosion of rage?"

"Dude, totally." Jim leans back in his chair and folds his hands behind his head. "It gets so fucking boring up in here."

"But it’s _your_ ship."

"Doesn’t mean I’m not bored like, half the time. Ask your dad. I’m always bothering him with my shenanigans." He swipes some frosting off the top of my cake and I slap his hand away. "Hey, I could court martial you."

"Jurisdiction knows no cake."

"True." Jimmy T tosses a hashbrown at me. "Go change and I’ll show you around."

I guess he doesn’t appreciate the subtle humor and wit of my _I’m Awake What More Do You Want_ t-shirt.

Philistine.

"Don’t you have like, duties to perform?"

"Honey, I’m the _captain_. I do what I want."


	4. I'm Not a Regular Captain, I'm a COOL Captain

When I was six, Leonard lost me in a hospital.

It wasn’t his fault. I was a runner. My mom used to tie a rope around my waist and let me wear lots of jangly bracelets so she’d hear when I moved. Like hanging a bell around a cow’s neck, but way less damaging to my future self-esteem. By the time I bolted in Biloxi General, my parents were barely speaking, so it was very hard for my mother to convey to Leonard not to let me out of his sight. Or grip.

And to his credit, without being told, using up perhaps all of his fatherly instinct quota for my entire life, Leonard kept a pretty good eye on me. Well, he held onto me like a drowning sailor holds onto a piece of driftwood. Which was very effective until he had to put me down.

One of his patients went to some sort of shocksepsiscomawhatever and he left me with a nurse.

A young nurse.

A young, foolish nurse.

She turned to get me a lollipop and I booked it.

Before I got boobs and hips and this big ol’ butt, I could run like lightening.

The waxed floor certainly helped, as did my little white cotton socks, so I slid and slid and slid until I could slide no more. And by then, I had no fucking clue where I was. Mostly, it looked like everywhere else in the hospital. Beige walls, green tiles, vomit-and-piss smell. The only thing different was that there were a shit ton of gurneys. Gurneys and feet.

In retrospect, it was a morgue, but at the time, it was a tropical jungle and I was tigress hunting arrogant villagefolk that dared enter my leafy home.

Hey, I’m an only child. I have an over active imagination.

So I was lurking around on my hands and knees, growling at imaginary koalas and gazelle (mom skimped on the ZooBooks) when I finally saw my prey. I sprang forward! I caught its ankle in my ripping jaws of death! It screamed and knocked over a gurney!

And like so many dominoes, every corpse in the morgue toppled over.

The intern screamed.

I screamed.

The intern screamed.

I screamed.

The intern screamed.

I ran like a bat out of hell.

All my Super Girl Detective skills were gone. Every door looked the same, every hallway, every hospital worker. It was like going around in circles and I was exhausted and I couldn’t find my way back to my daddy. Finally, finally, finally I stumbled shoeless back to the main desk where a pair of ratty jeans was yelling at a pair of pink hospital scrub pants.

"How do you lose a child!"

"B-b-b-ut, D-d-d-"

I latched on to the denim covered leg and Leonard hoisted me up, petting my hair and holding me like he would never let me go again.

Walking around the Enterprise gives me the same run-around-in-circles-deja-vu-didn’t-I-just-see-you-two-halls-back? feeling.

Except instead of running towards my dad, I want to run as far away as possible.

\---

I get back to my room and flop open my suitcase. I unpacked my books and my toiletries because they’re things I could easily part with if Mom suddenly, out of the blue called and told me she’d made a terrible mistake and she left Moonbeam on a Mexican beach and oh, Joanna, won’t you please come home and I had to bug out quickly.

Actually, I wouldn’t even need my clothes. I would just go with what was on my back.

I hadn’t known exactly what to pack. Would it be cold on a starship? Or warm? Or would everyone have to wear big, dorky climate suits and so it didn’t matter what I brought at all.

But now I realize that the temperature is neither hot nor cold. It’s not humid or dry. It’s not anything.

When in doubt, big white t-shirt and red plaid flannel. So-so-so-tight-but-still-so-so-so-comfy jeans and bright yellow Chucks that always make me happy. Comb my bangs over my zitty forehead and go.

Jimamlim is waiting outside my door.

"The Unofficial, Totally Not Star Fleet Issue, Probably Get Me in Trouble With Your Dad Tour." He waves his hands in my face and makes whooshing noises. "It begins now."

Cap’n Jimbob leads me over to a little porthole window at the end of the hall.

"This is where I tried to start an outdoor bocce court." He points to a bunch of white lines on the hull of the ship. "It didn’t really catch on."

I have to hand it to Sir Jim-a-lot. He remembers everyone’s name, even the drippy looking guys that change the toilet paper rolls, and trust me there are tons of names to remember. None of them stick with me, but I’ve already given them nicknames in my head. Well, for the ones that stand out.

Like Baskethead, whose real name is Yeoman Rand, but homegirl’s weave looks like someone gluegunned a basket to her head. I point this out to Jimminy Kirket and he has to sit down in the middle of the hall he’s laughing so hard.

"Captain!" someone calls from the other end of the corridor, which is filling up with people so a shift must have just ended

"Oh, shit!" Jim scrambles to his feet and pulls me down a short dead end hallway and shields his cheek with his hand. "She’s so pissed at me."

There’s a pretty blonde standing in the main corridor with her hands on her hips, looking very angry.

"How can she be pissed at you? You’re the captain."

"Yeah, but I’m a Cool Captain. I’m the captain that let’s you stay up and watch Teen Choice Awards even though its on passed your bedtime and pretends not to notice when you steal a wine cooler from the cook-out."

"Aah."

"I sort of took her on a… grown-up date and then didn’t… call her." He winces. "Which totally isn’t cool and if a guy ever does that to you, you should… judo chop his weiner in half." He clearly struggled to say weiner in my presence.

Eventually the angry blonde lady flounces away and Captain Cool pulls us back into the flow of migrating spacemen.

Besides her, everyone seems to love el capitan. I mean love. I guess he really is a cool captain because every new person we see has something to say to him, some inside joke, some favor, some piece of information for Kirkenstein. And he’s gracious or funny or sympathetic as he needs to be.

I have to admit, fella is growing on me too.

"The Enterprise has four hundred thirty crewmen, fourteen science labs, three hundred cabins and one glory hole." He pats a door marked ‘Electrical Closet’. "Its in here. Now let’s go meet Scotty."

Jimbo turns on his heel and wooshes through a door.

"This," Jim throws his arms up, "Is engineering."

Engineering is huge with all these pipes and machines and computers and there’s this whirring that wiggles into my ear and makes my teeth hum. I mean, it’s bigger than anything else on this ship. I can’t even see the ceiling, which makes me feel practically outside.

"This controls all the engines, and this controls all the life support." The Jimmeister flits around, clearly very proud of all this space mumbojumbo. "This… I have no idea with this does."

"Capt’n, I cannae explain this tah yah again." A redshirt pops up from behind one of the machines, a wrench in one hand and a sandwich in the other. "It controls th’ Jeffrey’s Tube."

"Scotty, I don’t even know what a Jeffrey’s Tube is." Jimbob falls into his loose, sarcastic parade rest. "This is--"

"Oh, my! Is this th’ wee Joanna McCoy!" He drops the sandwich and wrench and claps a hand on either side of my face. "Look at yah, darlin’! Yer th’ spittin’ image o’ yer dah! I knew yah were comin’ but I though’ it would be a while yet."

"Jo, this is chief engineer Montgomery Scott."

"But everyone calls me Scotty, dear."

"Oh, ‘cuz you’re Scottish?"

Scotty takes a step back. He and Jim tilt their heads at me.

"No, ‘cuz his last name is Scott." Kirkmeister shakes his head at me and snorts, " ‘’cuz you’re Scottish?’ Why would we do that? That’s just rude."

"Scottist, really."

"Yeah, do we look like a bunch of Scottists? Do we look like we condone Scottism?"

God.

"How’s the Lady today?"

"Oh, she’s purrin’ like a good girl, capn’."

"Not misbehaving, I hope."

Are they really talking about a chick like this? I got the feeling that the Kirkster was sort of a skank, but Scotty… He’s young, but he sort of reminds me of my grandpa, cheek pinching and quarter giving.

"Not a bit, sir. She’s been actin’ real easy of late, if yah know what I mean."

"I think I do, Mr. Scott."

The spirit of irate sorority, instilled in me at the pace of my mother’s bad dates, flares up.

"Uhm, _who_ is this?" Pop the hip, raise the eyebrows. Edge of anger, accomplished.

"The Enterprise, o’course."

"Who did you think we were talking about?" Kirk squinches his eyebrows at me, like he’s trying hard to read something on my forehead. I’m beginning to know the look well.

"See, the Enterprise, she’s like ah fine lady," Scotty pets (I shit you not, pets) one of the control consoles. "Treat her badly and she’ll throw ah drink in yer face. But respect her, treat her with kindness, hold open her door, oil her creaky joints, and she’ll show yah to th’ stars and back!"

Scotty’s eyes glaze over.

"Shit just got weird," James T. mutters and throws an arm around my shoulder.

Personal. Space. Biatch.

"Well, Mr. Scott, carry on. I’m going to show young Mistress McCoy the rest of the ship."

"Huh?" He snaps back to attention and picks up his wrench and sandwich. "Oh, aye. Come back whenever yah feel, Joanna."

Jim ushers me out engineering and the door whooshes behind us.

"Yeah, sorry about that." He propels us forward, his arm still around my shoulders. "Scotty loves the Enterprise."

"You do too." I gaht yo’ back, Scottster.

"No, he _loves_ it. In the biblical sense."

Ew.

"Ew."

"Yeah, keep all hands inside the vehicle when you’re in engineering after the night shift gets off. Just to be safe."

"Ew, again."

"Hey, look!" Sir Kirkalot has taken us through an elevator, down a crowded main hallway and through a maze of brightly lit corridors. I have no fucking idea where I am. "Its your room!"

It is my room, because it says ‘J. McCoy, Daughter’ in gray, Starfleet issue lettering. Oh Starfleet, ever precise, ever making a dick of itself.

"Hey, also look! It’s your dad’s room!" He points to the slidy door across from mine. It says ‘L. McCoy, Head Medical Officer’. Someone has crossed out the L. McCoy part and written ‘Bones’ with a space sharpie.

"Hey, look again! Its sickbay!" Campy asshole. "Let’s go see your dad!"


	5. Unicorns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "There are no entries in any Earth dictionaries that give a definition of," Spock pauses for a minute, chewing over the word he’s about to say, " ‘woogly’."

When I was really young, Leonard always smelled like leather and old coffee and sometimes on nights when he came home really late, still in his scrubs and spotted with red, he’d smell of cigarettes. He would hug me the tightest on those nights.

As I got older, he lost the smell of Mississippi dirt, except when he would spend the weekend. Jocelyn would flee and he would live out of a suitcase in the guestroom. Every time, he’d build me something new. Tree houses, jungle gyms, a tire swing. The smell of antiseptic would be shuffled away and when I hugged him goodbye, gripping the back of his neck with my little fists until he said ‘Whoa, Jo! I don’t have that much left as it is!’, he would smell like he used to.

Then he started doing the Star Fleet thing and I don’t know what he smelled like in the academy, probably whiskey and Febreeze. I only saw him once then, and I certainly didn’t hug him long enough to get a good whiff. Just a quick sideways hug, like a relative you’ve never met.

But I noticed when I hugged him in the transporter room that he smelled like artificial pine and new plastic. It fits somehow, new Leonard, new smell. Leather and coffee is struggling family man Leonard. Pine and plastic is doctor Leonard. Freshly shaved Leonard, even though his 5 o’clock shadow haunts his chin before he can even pat on aftershave. Serious Leonard.

That’s what it is.

There’s Daddy Leonard, who would give me piggyback rides and blow off an entire shift to watch me pull grass out on the sidelines of a soccer game I had no interest in, and there’s Doctor Leonard, who uses words like ‘prognosis’.

Who carries every fucking injury and sickness he sees on his shoulders instead of me.

\---

My past, possible future, definitely not present father is bent over a handsome-but-not-memorably-so redshirt, administering a hypospray.

"Bonesy!" Kirkster throws his arms up.

"Dammit, Jim!" He tosses the used cartridge in the trash and whirls around. "I don’t have time for your shit."

"Bah! There’s no one around!"

A pretty blonde nurse rolls her eyes and checks something off on a PADD.

"Plus, your daughter is here. You can’t neglect your own kid."

The _again_ seems to hang around.

Leonard rubs some antibacterial goo into his hands and gives me a hug. Fake pine and plastic.

"Howdya sleep, Chippy." Gugh, my childhood nickname rears its ugly head. Chippy, as in Chip Off The Old Block, or, as in The Chipmunk I Resembled From Age Four To Twelve.

"Okay, Da—Doctor McCoy."

He looks at me all worried and hurt for a minute when he lets go but it fades away. The Captainator slings an arm around my shoulder and an arm around Leonard’s.

"I was showing Jo around the ship. You know, all the educational stuff. Specs and shit."

"Oh, I’m sure." He and I wriggle free at the exact same time, leaving Kirk cuddling air. "Joanna, I’m afraid we’re going to have to remove your brain and dip it in Clorox."

"That’s just mean, Bones." Jim hops up on one of the beds and folds his arms behind his head. "She met Scotty."

"And?" Leonard raises an eyebrow at me.

"Scottish."

"Oh?"

"And crazy."

"That seems about right." He notices the Good Captain is on his sickbed and tosses a PADD at him. "Get off there Jim, that’s for sick people."

"Hey, I could be sick." He wiggles an eyebrow. "Give me a check-up."

"The only sick you are is sick in the head, now get down." Lenny seems a little embarrassed, shoots me a look. The check-up thing was a wee bit off-color, but then again, I’m sixteen. My mind has set up a cot and is sewing curtains in the gutter.

I wonder…ew.

2 Gross

2 B

Contemplated.

"Have you messaged Jocel--your mother yet?" Leonard turns his back fully to Jamesaroonee, out of sight out of mind and whatnot.

"Nah. I’m mad at her."

"If I was a mature parent, I would tell you not to begrudge her and that she’s still your mom."

"But you’re not."

"Oh, I know."

Jimster is pressing a bunch of different buttons on the panel next to the bed. Leonard pulls a little remote out of his pocket and clicks it. Metal loops shoot out and grab El Jim by the wrist and ankles.

"Stop touching shit, Jim." Len shakes his head. " She can wait it out."

"Hell yeah she can."

"What grown ass woman moves to _Cabo_ \--"

"With an alternative medicine intern?" We both snap together.

Eww. Hallmark moment.

I cough.

Kirkle is struggling against arm loop things.

"Not cool, Bones."

"You’re a child, Jim. Have you started in on your lessons Chip?"

Gahd. Its like Jeopardy with him.

"I’ll do one later." And by that I mean, I’ll let it play while I listen to music and write letters.

"I’ll meet you for dinner, after my shift." He takes the remote out again and clicks. The loops retract and Kirkenstein gets up. He gives the bed a kick.

"You’re mean!" Kirkster limps over to us. "We’ll be back when you’re less grumpy."

"No!" My hand shoots to my chest and I pretend to swoon. "We’ll never see him again!"

"Oh, haha." Leonard tries to chew back a grin."Mess hall, after Theta shift--"

"Dude, give me civilian time."

"8:30."

I reach out to give him a hug, pure reflex, I assure you. But before he can hug back, I do this awkward maneuver that turns it into a shoulder punch.

"Stay classy, Len."

"Stay classy, Jo." Stupid dad grin.

This time I woosh out first with J.Kirk on my heels.

" ‘Stay classy?’ Could you two be any more awkward?"

"I haven’t seen him in person since I started wearing bras, okay." I’m walking fast, trying to distance between me and the father-that-never-really-was, so fast I can hear recycled air go whistling passed me.

"Slow down, Chippy. You’ll get a speeding ticket."

I come to a dead stop.

"Don’t call me Chippy," I growl. Yeah, I growled. The tigress days are not so far behind me.

"You’re way more like your dad then you think."

"I’m not." I knit my eyebrows.

"That’s such a lie." Kirkmeister grins in my face and tugs on the end of my hair.

I huff.

God, I can’t believe I huffed.

I keep walking until I get to an intersection of hallways, where I stop dead again, people flowing around me like fish around a rock. Jimster catches up.

"I have no fucking idea where I’m going."

"To the bridge!" He bounds to one side of the hall in a single giant step and presses a button. An elevator type door opens. Sir Kirkalot waves me in first. "Milady."

"Is this your super deluxe Captain’s elevator?"

"Turbolift, and no." He looks around at it like he’s deciding what color drapes would go best with glowing white space plastic. "Although, it might look better with some posters."

"Glow-in-the-dark?"

"Duh. Unicorns?"

"Of course."

"Unicorns and alcohol," he sighs. "Make everything better. Write that down."

Alright, spaceman. I don’t know who told you that unicorns are my secret love, but it worked.

Joanna: 1. Spaceman: 1. Game, set, match.

"Just don’t ask for bone marrow," I say to myself, _oops_ , accidentally out loud.

"Huh?"

"Nothin’."

We’re friends.

\---

"Miss McCoy, welcome to the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise!" The elevator, oh sorry, _turbolift_ , opens.

It’s bright, almost surgically pristine and glowing, like everything else on this ship, from the floor up. There are screens with garbled data I can’t even begin to recognize scrolling down them, and a big screen showing, you guessed it, stars. Everyone is sitting at a console, tippity tapping away.

It’s all very anti-climatic.

"Aren’t you guys supposed to all jump up for me or something?"

"You told us to stop, remember, Captain." Uhura (finally, someone I actually sort of know) says, twirling in her chair. There’s something almost joking in the way she says ‘Captain’. She smiles at me and I do a two-fingered wave.

"You said it made you feel all…uh… what was the word?" A yellowshirt guy sitting at the front console tosses over his shoulder.

"He said ‘voogly’," the young yellowshirt next to him says.

"Yeah, woogly."

"Man, _I_ don’t even know what that means." Jimfert sits down in a big turn-y chair.

"There are no entries in any Earth dictionaries that give a definition of," Spock pauses for a minute, chewing over the word he’s about to say, " ‘woogly’."

"Well, that’s just not right." Cap’n Jim rubs his chin. "Computer! Do we have a definition for ‘woogly’."

 _Boop_ , _beep_.

"Captain’s personal database addendum," Kirkmeister’s recorded voice comes over a speaker. "Definition, woogly: To have the jibblies."

"Vat is… jibblies?"

"Its like," Jimalim squints. "When you feel all woogly."

"This is going nowhere," Uhura cuts in. "Captain, why don’t you introduce our new passenger."

"Oh yeah, totally." He hops up and over to me. "This is Joanna, Dr.McCoy’s daughter. She’s gonna live here now."

"Here?" The yellowshirt #1 raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah, here. Why is everyone have trouble with that? This is Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, and the little guy is ensign Pavel Andr- Anddrev-"

"Pavel Andreivich Chekov."

Sulu nods and gives a half smile, while Pavel Andreivich Chekov sends me a little wave and a grin, showing rows of tiny teeth.

Ohmygoodness, he is adorable. Like, I want to put him in my shirt.

Not in a sexual way.

Like you’d carry around a baby kitten.

In your shirt.

He’s really young looking, maybe a little older than me, with curly hair and big, impossibly round eyes. He’s pale and slim and I’m tempted to ask Cap’n if there’s a definition in the Star Fleet database for twink.

"And you know everyone else important." Jimbos gestures vaguely at a bunch of redshirts working busily. They roll their eyes.

"Captain," Spock stands behind the spinny captain’s chair with his hands behind his back. "While I do not doubt that your morning activities have been… valuable, there are certain duties you cannot put off any longer."

"Like what?"

"Like captaining the ship." Spock’s eyebrows are threatening to escape his face.

"I can’t just leave Joanna alone." Kirk grips my shoulders and pouts. "She’ll get lost. Or choke on something. Or--"

"With your permission, Captain," Uhura jumps in again. "I’ll leave my post early and have lunch with Miss McCoy."

"Fine," Kirkster says glumly. I can’t tell if he’s bummed that he doesn’t get to hang out with fabulous me anymore or because he has to work. "Dismissed."

"Good idea, Captain." Uhura motions a red shirt over and takes her ear piece out.

I guess I know who really runs the bridge.

"C’mon, Joanna." She takes me by the elbow with one of her super strong Wonder Woman hands. "Let’s have some girl talk."


	6. Chapter 6

Leonard never told me to not talk to strangers. But then again, Leonard encouraged me to not to talk to anyone.

Not that he ever said exactly that, because, God, he’s not _that_ much of a clueless dad. But he did spend an awful long time talking about the general shittiness of people. No gender, age, color or creed is free from shittiness in Leonardius’s book. I’m fairly certain he views himself as rather shitastic too, though he only shows it through mildly self-destructive behaviors, like drinking and signing on to serve on starships.

When I was very, very little, I would sit on the front stoop and chat up anyone who came by. Mormons, streetwalkers, policemen, whatever.

My mom said I was like those wind-up dentures.

My dad said I was like the energizer bunny.

My teachers said I was like a mosquito.

Jocelyn tells me is to think before I speak, but I already do. I think, _is this funny? If not, how could it be more funny? What expletive will make it funnier?_

And then I speak.

She calls it a lack of internal screening.

I call it wit.

Let’s call the whole thing off

\---

Writers like to talk about comfortable silences, the kind that happen because there is no need to talk.

This is not one of those comfortable silences.

Uhura is forking apart her slab of fish flake by flake. I am adding pepper to my big bowl of mashed potatoes.

"So," she says, with more-than-strictly-necessary cheer.

"So." I pile the mashed potatoes into a little mountain.

Uhura sighs and folds her arms on the table. I know she’s supposed to be the communications person, but she cannot communicate with _me_.

"What’s your favorite subject in school?"

I’m sure that millions of years ago, some caveteenager’s caveaunt asked him what his favorite caveclass was.

"Dismissal."

She raises an eyebrow at me.

"Work with me, Joanna." She pulls at her earring. The mothering is not strong with this one.

"I _am_ working with you." I draw train tracks in the potatoes, folding over a lump to make a tunnel. "If I wasn’t working with you, you’d be tearing your hair out by now and weeping gently in a corner."

"You’re just like your dad."

"Everyone keeps _saying_ that."

"Well, it's true."

"Well, it's not exactly a compliment." All Powerful Goddess of the Mashed Potatoes, Joanna. I tip over the top of my potatoy peak in an avalanche of starchy goodness. I can practically hear the buttery screams.

"Dr.Mc--" she stops and makes an exasperated noise, "Your father asked me to try and make this an easy transition."

"Lieutenant," I lean in and put on what Jocelyn calls the McCoy Angry Face, a stylish blend of anger, indignation, and annoyance. " I am a sixteen-year-old only child, living on a star ship with a bunch of strangers a decade older than me, hurtling around space with a father I haven’t seen since I was twelve, no contact with anyone my age, a bunch of scratchy holo-lessons to keep me occupied and a limited supply of nailpolish. I am moody and horny and angry and sad and I’m not about to go quietly."

"I can appreciate that." Uhura rests her hands on her chin. "But you’re acting like a real bitch."

I lean back in my chromeandspaceplastic seat and narrow my eyes at her.

Anyone who can stand in the full fury of the McCoy Angry Face gets my full and unshakeable respect.

"Give me a few days," I say and stick a forkful of potato in my mouth so I won’t say anything stupid.

Too much pepper

"You can get more nail polish from supply. They’ll set you up with a monthly package, soap and tampons, whatever you need."

"Oh, I’m on the pill," I blurt out. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Uhm…" She gives an awkward smile.

"For acne," I add quickly. And not having babies.

She laughs and its loud and warm, sort of like mom’s. Not that I miss my mother. I am back to angry at her. Officially, of course.

"Does your dad…"

Oh, shit. Leonard.

Now he has access to my medical records, which would include the fact that I’ve been on birth control for a year.

I thonk my head on the table.

"Fuckballs."

"He won’t say anything." She crosses her utensils on her empty plate.

"But he’ll _know_. Every time he looks at me, I’ll know he knows. And he’ll know I know he knows. And he’ll just be looking at me like _You’re on the pill_. And I’ll have to look back like _Please don’ say anything about me being on the pill_. Shit."

"Do you have a boyfriend?" She seems more comfortable now. Like calling me a bitch popped this big Bitch bubble and now we are equally not bitches. Or equally bitches, but in a way that cancels it out.

"Yes. No." I run my finger around the rim of the bowl, catching mashed potato like a snowplow. From Mashed Potato Goddess to Plow Driver in no time flat. "I did. His name was Ed. Well, it still is Ed. I just don’t date him anymore."

"Why did you break up?"

"Uh, how ‘bout ‘cuz I was moving a bajillion light years away?"

She laughs the Mom laugh again. "I can see how that might strain the relationship."

"Moving to a starship is the torn ACL of the dating world. How long have you and the Spockster been carrying on?"

She seems caught off guard. "Did your dad--"

"No. But Senor Spock was all holding your knee last night. I figured he wasn’t the casual office romance type."

"Since the academy." She flushes a little and draws a line on the table with her nail. "He was my instructor."

"Kinky."

She throws a napkin at me, laughing. "You’re grounded!"

\---

Before I leave the dining hall, I replicate myself a cabbage. That’s right, a whole purple cabbage. I loves da cabbage.

The redshirt at the replicator next to me looks at my like I’m crazy.

"Iron deficiency," I say and tuck it under my arm like a football. He edges away.

Back in my room, I plunge my hand into the sack o’ holo-lessons and pick one at random.

_The Importance of Whales_

Lame.

I push it into the little projector and carry it into the bathroom, where I leave it on the counter to play through while I do other, more valuable things with my time.

There’s a dinky little computer on the desk, but I brought Ol’ Faithful from home, so I push the little guy out of the way and plop Faithy right on down.

I hope it’ll connect to the Star Fleet whatsit because I’ma be hella pissed if I can’t get my music and such. Ol’ Faithful _boopboopboop_ s on.

It asks for a screen name and vessel. What the hell.

jmccoy, enterprise

The screen says ‘Welcome to Star Fleet Mobile Network!"

Joanna McCoy, Universe’s Foremost Female Hacker.

WindowsTunes opens like a dream and I put on something old and dreamy.

‘ _A song for someone who needs somewhere to long for… Homesick cause I no longer know what home is…_ ’

I generally can’t stand the synthy bullshit of my generation’s music, but I do pride myself on being up on all the new underground bootlegs and such. Before long, I’ll be behind on everything. For all I know, by the time I jump ship and get back home, everyone will be wearing boots on their heads and wrapping their arms in tinfoil.

All the Star fleet technology in the universe will keep me in the loop. Way out in the Some Latin Letter Quadrant That I Can’t Remember, there’s no way to hear the newest Vulcanized Metal demo, which is a super cool Denobulan band that mixes Vulcan meditation chants and 20th century death metal. It is, like all my other music, the absolute shit.

Leonard was right about one thing. I do need to send Jocelyn an email, for although I am mad at her, I don’t want her going all crazy with mom hormones and hijacking a spaceship to come looking for me.

_To: joismybabybear@millenniummail.com_

_From: jothegirldetective@icanhazmail.com_

_Dear Jocelyn i.e. Mother i.e. ~~Public Enemy #1~~ ,_

_I am fine. The shuttle was fine, the transporting was fine, Leonard is fine, Leonard’s captain is fine (like REAL fine)._

_Hope you and ~~Moonbeam Scooter~~ whatshisname are having fun and I also you guy’s are using protection because gross._

_Love you ~~but not really cuz I’m still mad at you for sending me here~~ ,_

_Your Hmbl. Serv. Etc.,_

_Joanna_

I click send. I don’t know if the Josster has a computer where she is, nor do I care at this point. I have done my daughterly duty. I peel a section off my cabbage and start on my other letters.

_To: ohmyoriongirl@icanhazmail.com_

_From: jothegirldetective@icanhazmail.com_

_Dearest Lovely Lelaa_

_I am not fine. The shuttle blew, the transporting blew, Leonard ~~blows~~ (gross) is Leonard, Leonard’s captain ~~blows~~ (not really, he’s actually an okay dude). The food BLOWS. My room is… big, but still blows on merit of not being on earth._

_I miss you like a vegan misses bacon, only more, because your presence leaves me more satisfied without making my butt bigger, although technically it does, because your scrawny ass makes me look like the Jolly Green Giant. But all in all, I really do miss you, you redhaired slut bitch. Maybe you can come visit me (naht) or maybe I’ll throw myself off this smelly old ship and float to you._

_Everything blows, write more when shit happens (never),_

_Jo, your BFFLETSABLYAFY (Best Friend Forever Even Though She’s A Bajillion_ _Light Years Away From You)_

_P.S. When you get back to Earth, I want you to keep a super special eye on dEaD, because when I get back I might want him undEaD, in which case I need to know if he has been indulging in the skankface that Need-Not-Be-Named. But I will name her----- HEATHER._

And finally:

  
_To:stupidfuckingexboyfriended@hellforallicare.gofuckyourself_

_From: jothegirldetective@icanhazmail.com_

_Dear dEaD,_

_That’s what me and Leela call you, because you are basically dead to me now. Get it? It has your name in it. Its very clever I assure you, but you are a stupid stupid person and so I don’t expect you to understand._

_I’m sorry that it ended the way it did, what with me throwing a cheese grater at you, even though you should now better than to get into an argument in the kitchen with me. I am sorry because I really liked you and you’re a really good kisser and I went on the Pill for you because while you are a good kisser and know you’re way around the back of your truck/the couch in my basement/under the bleachers that one time when we were laughing too hard to get the condom on and I got all freaked out the day after---- I don’t want your lumpyheaded baby._

_Yeah, I said it._

_You have a lumpy head. Your mom was showing me pictures at your house while you were getting dressed before semi-formal and you had the lumpiest baby head I’ve ever seen. So thanks, but no thanks. I want my babies to have smooth heads. Like maybe your friend Lee’s._

_I am kidding._

_We both know I am not a vindictive bitch and having a spite baby with your lumpyheaded ex’s best friend is pretty vindictive._

_Anyway, I wanted to say goodbye again, and this time without throwing something at you._

_So goodbye Ed. Its not me, its you. You are unable to commit and for that you should be committed to a mental hospital because I am the flyest girl on the Gulf Coast, even if I’m in space now. You are missing out and for that I pity you. I pity you as I would pity a one legged dog or a possum that’s bottom half has been crushed by an eighteen wheeler, but the top half lives on._

_Hope the grater marks on your face aren’t scabbing terribly,_

_Joanna ‘If You Liked It Then You Shoulda Put A Ring On It’ McCoy_

\---

Okay, so I didn’t really send the last one, although hellforallicare.gofuckyourself would be the best domain name ever. But if I did, Ed would deserve every word of it because he is a bowlegged, fisheyed, lily livered, hopeless, brainless, son of a swamp rat’s louse.

I don’t have a filter issue, do I?


	7. Enter the Cupcake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because being alone with Leonard means that we’re going to talk about things we don’t talk about in other peoples’ presence. Like how babies are made or why I have been less than warm and fuzzy towards him or why in the fuck hell did he jet for the Midwest the minute the ink dried on his divorce.

There are many, many things that run deeply in the McCoy family. Sense of direction is not one of them, though the hatred of asking directions streak runs as wide as the Mississip in me, as does temper, height and ability to hold liquor.

It doesn’t help either that I get it from both sides. Jocelyn couldn’t find her way out of a paper sack. If both my parents were stuck in a paper sack it would go like this:

"LEFT, Leonard, LEFT."

"We just came from that direction, Jocelyn. I know where I’m going."

"You have no idea where you’re going. Jesus Christ, you’re so macho. Just pull over-"

"Where am I going to pull over? Where is there anywhere to pull over?"

"RIGHT THERE!"

"WHERE!"

"ON THE RIGHT! NO, MY RIGHT!"

"Our rights are the same."

"Just pull over. Ask that speck of paper pulp how to get to the highway."

"I’m not asking anyone for directions. That speck could be a murderer. I know where I’m going."

"WATCH OUT!"

"AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!"

And then they fall into a paper sack river because they weren’t watching the paper sack road.

I’m actually surprised my parents even carried out the divorce, considering the fact that they’d actually have to get to a courthouse to do it.

Just because I can’t tell my east from my west doesn’t mean I couldn’t pretend. In fact, some of my most epic childhood games involved exploration. Hop in a washtub with a paper hat and suddenly you’re Magellen. On windy days, I would take two shovels and a wheel-barrow and pretend to round the Horn of Africa over and over again.

Before he left for Iowa, before my parents were even divorced, just separated (Leonard explained it best; like a sandwich cut in half, so even if the halves were apart they still had the peanut butter), Lenny rented a house on the other side of town. It was a bachelor pad with a scraggly yard that was bordered by woods that howled and chirped all night long. The inside was dirty and small, paint peeling off the windows like white lead potato chips. He only stayed there for a few weeks, but I was staying with him full-time because Mommy was sleepy. A testament to Jocelyn; when Leonard moved out his last suitcase, Mom hauled me up by my arm pits and thrust me into his truck, instructing Len to take care of me until she could talk without yelling and sleep without drinking.

Leonard would pick me up from daycare and let me play in the backyard while he made dinner, propping the screen door so he could keep an eye on me. The rule was I could be out there alone, as long as the door stayed open.

One night, the door slammed closed while Len was out of the kitchen. As was my nature, I bolted, free from the imagined fence.

In the woods, I was like Artemis. Hunting men and something my mommy called bloodsucking creditors, her two greatest enemies. I stalked around pines and over logs, frightening frogs and shooting arrows (hucking sticks) at squirrels. I was having such a triumphant hunt that I barely noticed it was dark until the only thing I could see was the pink flashes on my light-up sneakers.

Artemis wasn’t afraid of the dark. She could find her way by the stars and kill a bear with her laser eyes.

Joanna was afraid of the dark. And she couldn’t tell shit from a sabretooth tiger.

Maybe I stumbled around, maybe I sat down on a tree root, I don’t remember, it was a long time ago. I do remember how it was so loud but still so quiet. Everything had its own noise, the trees, the animals, the wind, all unseen and equally scary. But still, there was the quiet of no human presence. No cars on the highway, no motorboats on the river. Just Joanna McCoy and all the monsters that could spring from her head.

At some point, Leonard found me. He scooped me up and hugged me until it hurt, babbling in the way that parents do. I assured him I was fine and that he didn’t need to have such a colossal cow, it was just the woods.

He just laughed, short sad little coughing laughs.

At home he checked me over from cuts and bruises, asked me if I’d eaten anything in the woods, gave me a bowl of mac and cheese and plopped me on the couch, turning the volume on the TV way, way up.

In the kitchen, I could hear him talking on the phone with someone and pacing. He was trying to keep his voice down.

"…just found her… scariest fucking thing that’s ever…I know, I know… you think I was _trying_ … don’t know if it was on…pick her up tomorrow…finish this whole fucking mess…"

He sat with me all night, reading me stories and singing me songs, sometimes waking me up just as I started to drift off. I didn’t sleep until a little past midnight, when he kissed me on the forehead and said very seriously, "I’ll love you always Jo."

The next morning, Mommy must have gotten some sleep too because Jocelyn picked me up and wasn’t even mean to Lenny. She even hugged him and apologized.

Leonard carried me to the car and nestled me into the car seat.

"Love you always, Jojo."

"Love you always and forever and ever, Daddy."

"Well, I’ll love you even longer than forever."

"That’s stupid. There’s nothing longer than forever. But if there was I would love you for longer."

He kissed me on the forehead and Jocelyn drove away with the softest, "Goodbye, Leonard."

That afternoon, they finalized the divorce. Leonard gave up primary custody and quit his job. Jocelyn took _everything_ , just like the lawyer said she could, but my father barely put up a fight. He promised alimony and child-support, double what the judge recommended, double what he could really pay. Then he left.

I don’t blame myself for my parents’ divorce. They were like two balls of fire. Nothing could stop them from self-destructing and they both did their best to save me from being crushed by the cave-in.

But if I did, would you really blame _me_?

\---

Maybe I should start leaving breadcrumb trails. But a little space vacuum would probably pop out of nowhere and suck it right up.

I take a left passed sickbay, go down a hallway, and go straight on till morning and I have no fucking idea where I am.

Its sort of drippy though.

Drippy and dingy, which is a change from bright and sterilized at least. I’m pretty sure this is where the toilet paper changers live.

I’m looking for a sign to direct me back to, how about, um, civilization, when a refrigerator shaped red shirt comes barreling towards me.

"Halt!"

"I’m not moving..."

"Silence!" He’s breathing heavily, obviously out of shape. Another first.

"You can’t _order_ me to be silent." I pop a hip and cross my arms.

Redshirt taps a button on the wall and bellows, "Security, we have a stowaway-"

"I’m not a stowaway, what sane fucking person would stowaway on a starship on an _exploratory_ mission--"

"I repeat, we have a stowaway. Am escorting stowaway to brig."

"Are you serious!"

He grabs me by the arm and starts pulling me down the hall.

"You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be held against you in a Star Fleet court of inquiry."

We’re back in a main corridor. I have to blink a couple times to get used to the light.

"Dude, you are totally tweaking--"

A couple of people turn to look. As far as I know, the news of my arrival has raced around the ship, quenching the gossip thirsts of the Enterprise’s scandal deprived crewmen.

This fucking idiot has obviously has missed the memo.

God I hope they didn’t send out a memo.

"Cupcake!"

Sir Kirkahad appears, and he might as well by riding a white fucking steed.

"What’s going on?"

"Stowaway," Redshirt/Cupcake chokes through gritted teeth.

"Stowaway…?" Jimster taps his ear and looks expectantly.

"Stowaway, _sir_."

"Wrong! This is Dr.McCoy’s daughter. She’s taken permanent residence on the Enterprise. You’re dumb."

Cupcake let’s go of my arm grudgingly.

"Sorry, sir." He scowls at me and hisses, "As you were."

"Ex- _cuse_ me," I say, unable to stamp down the Southern Belle Bitch in me any longer. "I am the one you should be apologizing Cupcake. What stupid rat bastard, cousin kissing, inbred fuck wad just goes around arresting any old person! I would swear to a court of _law_ that you touched my boob. Yeah, I definitely remember some boob touching. As _you_ were."

Jimbob laughs and takes me firmly by the elbow, steering me away. Cupcake stays rooted in the middle of the corridor.

"You’re just like your--"

"If you say I’m like my dad, I’m going to knock out your pretty teeth."

Kirkinator stares at me and smirks.

"That just made you sound more—"

"I’ve been on this ship less than twenty four hours and I’ve already been compared to my father more times than I have in my entire life."

That’s not strictly true. Jocelyn’s bitch cousin Lurleen compares me unfavorably to him all the time.

He steers me down a smaller hallway and lets go of my elbow.

"You just met everyone’s favorite redshirt."

"For serious?"

"Fuck no," he scoffs. "First time I met Cupcake he broke my nose."

"Is it sexual harassment to call him Cupcake?"

"They didn’t say anything about it in the sexual harassment course at the academy, so I guess not."

They have an _entire_ course at the academy devoted to sexual harassment?

"If everyone hates Cupcake so much, why don’t you kick him off the ship?"

"Because." He stops us at a slidy door. "That would be an abuse of power. Ensign Cupcake has conducted himself in a middling fashion. That’s all Star Fleet can ask of any baked good."

"He touched my boob," I say, pointing to one of the possibly offended breasts as we whoosh in.

"He did not touch your boob," Kirk scoffs. "Did he?"

"If he had, you would mopping up Cupcake blood right now."

"Sounds like you’re adjusting nicely." Leonard waves us over.

If Leonard was any cornier, I could make muffins.

_Mmm….muffins._

"I’ll get food," Kirkster offers. "You two bond. What do you want, Jo?"

"Double chocolate muffin." Leonard raises an eyebrow at me. "And a bowl of edamame, please."

Jimminy Doo Da, Jimminy Day skips off (he doesn’t skip, but he looks like he would) and leaves me with a total nightmare.

Being alone with Leonard.

Because being alone with Leonard means that we’re going to talk about things we don’t talk about in other peoples’ presence. Like how babies are made or why I have been less than warm and fuzzy towards him or why in the fuck hell did he jet for the Midwest the minute the ink dried on his divorce.

Leonard taps his fingers on the table. I chip at my nail polish.

"How was your day," he says all at once.

"Fine. Kirkmeister showed me around. I wrote some letters."

"Kirkmeister?"

"You know in _The Shawshank Redemption_ how Morgan Freeman says that a man will do anything to keep his mind busy in jail?"

"You’ve been keeping your mind busy with coming up with new names for Ji – Captain Kirk."

"Yeah. And counting lightbulbs."

Leonard looks around.

"I've never seen a lightbulb here."

I tap my head and nod. "See. Keeps the mind sharp. How was your day."

"Boring," he sighs. "Treated a couple of burns and STDs."

"Don’t they have a herpes strain named--"

"Yes. They do," Leonard rubs his brow. "Have you messaged your mother?"

"Yeah, yeah. Assured her of my safety, snarked at her for sending me here."

"Give it some time, Jo." He seems almost sad when he says it, like he feels guilty. Which he totally should. "Its only day one."

"Len," I say, judo chopping the conversation in half with my magical hand of avoidance. "I don’t want to talk about it."

You’d need to supply me with alcohol and made-for-tv mother/daughter movies to get me in a proper state of mind to probe the depths of mushy melancholy that is my relationship with my father.

"Oh, thank God." He drops his head into his hands and exhales loudly. "I thought you were going to want to… resolve."

Ugh, the R word…

" _Resolve_?" I gasp.

" _Resolve_ ," he shudders.

"Why would I want to _resolve_?"

"Now Jo, be open minded. Some people like to… _resolve_."

"Why would you resolve when you could drink?"

"Amen— Joanna, have you started drinking?"

"Uh… only on weekends." 

"Jesus Joanna, you’re sixteen years old." Leonard fixes me with his Angry Face ™

"If you want to fight about my alcohol consumption," I sigh, patting his hand, "We’re also going to have to talk about my sex life."

"I don’t want to know."

"I do!" Kirk slides two trays onto the table. "Tell me about your baby daddy, Jojo."

"Who says I have _one.:_

Leonard looks from Kirkster to me to Kirkster. "Dear God."


End file.
